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With the UN Security Council clearing the way for restored sanctions to take effect on September 28, 2025, Tehran’s messaging has split in two. The Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) has moved to suspend cooperation with the IAEA, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is threatening a “lethal” response to any “miscalculation,” and parliamentarians are openly talking about leaving the NPT—even testing a bomb. At the same time, the currency and stock market are sliding, and veteran insiders warn that keeping people “satisfied” is now a political imperative. The result is a tableau of a regime both combative and brittle.
Only two weeks after Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi announced in Cairo a new “modus operandi” to structure cooperation (September 8, 2025), the SNSC reversed course. Following a snap meeting chaired by the regime’s president Masoud Pezeshkian, the council said on September 21 that “with the recent actions of the three European countries, cooperation with the Agency will in practice be suspended,” while instructing the foreign ministry to continue consultations within the SNSC’s parameters. The flip—from touting a procedural pathway in Cairo to pausing it in Tehran—captures the regime’s internal tug-of-war as the snapback clock runs down.
Parliament’s Nuclear Escalation
The most dramatic escalation came from Ahmad Naderi, a member of the Majlis Presidium, who wrote on X that “the only way to preserve Iran’s territorial integrity and national security is to acquire a nuclear weapon,” urging withdrawal from the NPT, adoption of opacity, and ultimately a nuclear test. National Security Committee member Behnam Saeedi argued that with snapback moving ahead, “there is no reason to implement the IAEA understanding,” adding that NPT exit is on the table. Others joined the chorus: threats to bar IAEA inspectors from bombed sites, calls to label European leaders as terrorists, and demands for “reciprocal measures” once snapback is executed.
The Khamenei-aligned press amplified the line. Kayhan, under Hossein Shariatmadari, asked on September 19: “After 22 years of damaging negotiations, is it not time to leave the NPT?” and demanded halting all cooperation “down to basic safeguards,” framing any hope in Western relief as “folly—or treason.”
#Iran’s Cairo Agreement Triggers Factional Warfare and Exposes Khamenei’s Weakening Grip https://t.co/E69azy8DfH
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) September 17, 2025
IRGC Posture vs. Market Reality
Marking Defense Week, the IRGC paired bravado with a warning: Iran is increasing its “offensive and defensive power” daily and, should the enemy commit a “new miscalculation,” would deliver “another lethal and instructive response.” The statement claimed Iran would hold the initiative on the battlefield and that force-buildups “will not stop.”
Markets told a different story. By September 21, the dollar topped 105,000 tomans in Tehran trading, and the Tehran Stock Exchange suffered a sharp sell-off, with the main index falling 50,666 points as investors digested snapback headlines and the government’s own signals of IAEA suspension. The gap between deterrent rhetoric and daily economic reality—one felt at grocery counters and factory floors—continues to widen.
Amid the drumbeat, regime veterans are telegraphing anxiety about the domestic temperature. Mohammad-Taghi Rahbar, a cleric and MP from Isfahan, leaned on a familiar logic of control on September 20: “Attend to livelihoods and keep the people satisfied,” he said, adding that officials should tell each other their weaknesses “privately, not from pulpits.” Former Tehran mayor Gholamhossein Karbaschi argued on September 21 that the country’s social, political, and economic situation is worse than 1988, invoking the moment when the founder of the clerical dictatorship “drank the poison chalice” to end the Iran-Iraq war—and urging Pezeshkian to secure real authority before flying to New York.
Khamenei’s Weak Position Exposed as #Iran's Rival Factions Escalate Infightinghttps://t.co/Z7U9xguQdl
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) September 4, 2025
Cairo’s Short Half-Life
The Cairo understanding—presented on September 8 as a way to sequence cooperation under Iran’s internal legal constraints—had a short half-life. By September 20, the SNSC said the European move toward snapback meant the cooperation path is suspended. Parliament’s National Security spokesman Ebrahim Rezaei followed on September 20–21, declaring Cairo “destroyed,” urging abandonment of all JCPOA limits, and calling for the redesign of the Arak 40-MW reactor and new generations of centrifuges. The rhetorical overrun makes a swift return to inspections—particularly at damaged sites—even less likely, heightening the risk that snapback hardens into a long-term impasse.
All of this lands as the U.N. Security Council’s refusal to permanently lift sanctions triggers an automatic re-imposition by September 28 unless reversed. European capitals have set explicit conditions to forestall that outcome—direct talks without preconditions, unfettered IAEA access including to bombed facilities, and full clarity on enriched stockpiles—but Tehran’s internal signals point the other way: IAEA suspension, NPT-exit talk, missile testing boasts, and a crescendo of media attacks on “appeasement.”
The political bottom line is stark. A leadership that speaks in two languages simultaneously—muscular defiance for home consumption and procedural ambiguity for foreign audiences—must now choose a single path with real costs. As the snapback deadline approaches, the regime’s contradictions are colliding with a fragile economy and a restive society. Boasts about resilience cannot mask black-market exchange rates, falling equities, or the steady drumbeat of elite infighting. Absent a course correction, the crisis triggered by snapback will not just be diplomatic; it will be political at home, where maintaining “a satisfied nation” is already slipping out of reach.